Cole The Monster Deck

A Deck-Building LitRPG
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7355748-9-9
Verlag: Different Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 422 Seiten

Reihe: The Monster Deck

Mark Henson is a riverboat gambler at heart.

But as a practiced cheat and card counter, he's been 86'd from half the casinos on The Strip. In his mind, he's always one game away from his luck turning around. That is, until The System arrives-and warps Nevada (and the rest of the world) into a digital card-based game.

When Mark awakes in the slums of Lost Vegas, a deck of cards rests on his chest. But these aren't just ordinary playing cards. They're Monster cards. And Mark finds himself with his own unique class: Card Cheat, giving him the ability to progress through this fantastical game world, level up, and manipulate the monsters in his deck to win (or at least survive).

But Mark isn't the only one in Lost Vegas... and in order to find his way out alive, he'll have to master his Monster Deck, scour dungeons for new cards, and level his class in this exciting new LitRPG deck-building story.

Welcome to the first book in the series, THE MONSTER DECK-a Deck-Building LitRPG and GameLit Series utilizing a Card-based Magic System.

Set in a parallel world (Lost Vegas), this story is a blood-pumping combination of steady power progression and survival. Perfect for fans of All the Skills and Towers of Heaven, as well as nostalgic games such as Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Magic: The Gathering. Get ready for funny characters placed in not-so-funny situations, collectable magical cards with secret powers, and tons of cliffhangers that will keep you up at night, flipping the page!

*Also to be available on Audible, narrated by the award-winning Gary Furlong. Gary has narrated some of the biggest LitRPG series' out there: Dungeon Crawler Carl Cinematic Version by Matt Dinniman; They Called me Mad by Jpal; The Hero Slayers by OS Marrow.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cole, Nicolas

Leseproben

If Mark had had his usual third cup of extra-strength truck stop coffee, he might have noticed the dented Cadillac with fancy rims in the parking lot, but he’d decided it could wait until he’d taken the garbage out. This was his first mistake.

His second mistake was not double knotting his shoelace, but we’re not quite there yet.

Mark was struggling with a bulging bag of greasy food scraps and restaurant garbage in the pre-dawn diesel smog and roar of idling semis and didn’t hear the tell-tale scrape of snakeskin boots on the pavement until it was too late.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” said the last voice Mark wanted to hear. “What a roach motel.”

Forgetting the garbage, Mark turned. Standing in the shadow of the Lost Canyon Oasis and Truck Stop was a hulk of a man with a sour expression on his face.

Mark swallowed hard and did his best impression of calm and collected. “Archer. Surprised to see a devoted urbanite like yourself all the way out here in the boonies.”

“Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.” Archer was the very portrait of an enforcer, built like a brick house. Big and Tall nothing — Mark suspected the man had to shop at Bigger and Taller. “Boss wants to know where his money’s at.”

Mark hesitated as his mind raced, coming up with something, anything that might get the guy off his case. In the awkward silence, there was a quiet tearing sound as the trash bag, half hanging from the dumpster, burst like overripe fruit, splattering discarded scrambled eggs, cold bacon grease, and old coffee grounds onto the concrete.

Mark took a step back as Archer inspected one of his precious boots with a sneer of disgust. “I talked to him about that already,” Mark said, licking his lips, a nervous tell if there ever was one. “You guys have to be a little understanding.”

“Do we?”

“Ever since I got busted, I’m blacklisted at every decent table in town. They got my picture up in every casino from here to the Hoover Dam. I can’t get a seat anywhere these days.”

“You see me standing here?” demanded Archer, leering down at Mark, whose hairnet and stained diner apron offered little protection. “You think the boss cares about any of that?”

“Probably not?”

“Emphatically not.” Archer crossed his arms, and his leather jacket groaned with the strain. “It’s time to pay up, cockroach.”

Mark laughed the high-pitched laugh of the absolutely screwed. “You know what? I don’t actually have all of it on me at the moment…”

“You don’t, huh? How much do you have?”

Mark dug into the grimy pockets of his uniform and came up with a fistful of crumpled bills and some change. The back of his neck sweating under Archer’s beady gaze, he counted it out. “Sixteen dollars, twenty-seven cents, and a button.”

“That is embarrassing. I am embarrassed for you,” said Archer, plucking the money out of Mark’s hand, visibly disgusted.

“I mean, you can’t just take that; it’s not all mine,” said Mark lamely. “We do tip share here.”

“That’s real cute. Where’s the rest of it?”

“Look, with all respect, do you not understand what I’m saying to you? I cannot make that kind of money anymore, my guy.” Mark pointed at the falling-down truck stop and greasy spoon, the gray desert slowly eroding the parking lot and everything else. “Literally nobody is gonna be here who could be anywhere else. I tried doing card tricks at kids’ birthday parties, but I mean, you have to deal with snot-nosed kids. Nothing’s worth that.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

“Come on, man, I never would have borrowed the money, but my mom was sick. She was going to lose her house to medical bills.”

“I’m really feeling for you here, pal,” said Archer. “Might even shed a tear.”

“Really?”

“No, of course not. You wanna act like a bad guy gone good, doing nasty jobs nobody else wants? You are a loser, Mark. You’ve always been a loser, and a loser you are going to remain.” Archer shoved Mark’s meager tips into his pocket, freeing up both hands. “Now, either you get me the rest of my money, or I stomp your face into this garbage. What’s it going to be?”

The enforcer was a big guy but slow on the uptake, and Mark was more than happy to take advantage of that fact. “See, the problem here is you’re not opening yourself up to all the possibilities, my friend.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

Mark shrugged, sneaking a glance at the kitchen door thirty feet away, tantalizingly still ajar. “I just mean, when you tell me my options are either a beatdown or paying up, you’re missing a third, very important option.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

Secure in the knowledge that it takes a second or two to get a freight train like Archer moving, Mark took off for that kitchen door.

Remember back when Mark’s second mistake was mentioned? That information is about to become very pertinent.

Halfway between the dumpster and the door, Mark’s left-hand shoelace, saturated with weeks of airborne, foul-smelling diner grease particles, came undone. Timing, like luck, was not on Mark’s side, and he tripped, executing a full-body lurch into a faceplant. His chin hit the concrete with a crack that jarred his skull, leaving a wet patch where the skin had been. Dazed for a second, he scrambled to make purchase on the gritty surface, but his worn tennis shoes did him no favors. By the time he got a handle on things, Archer had gotten a handle on him.

“You know, I think I’m going to enjoy this,” said the big man, hauling Mark to his feet less than gently. “If anyone could truly benefit from an ass kicking, it’s gotta be you.”

“Benefit’s a pretty strong word.”

Archer shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Mark saw the first punch coming; Archer telegraphed it very clearly, but it turned out that didn’t matter much. Given the choice between fight or flight, he just froze. A hamhock of a fist connected with Mark’s face, and stars exploded in his vision. It took him a second to realize he was back on the ground again. A tooth in his lower jaw was aching all the way down his neck, his mouth tasted like copper, and he spat more blood than saliva.

“I think you loosened my tooth,” he muttered, getting to his knees.

“That’s not all I’m going to do,” promised Archer. “That was just a love-tap, sweetheart.”

A swift kick to the stomach sent the air wheezing out of Mark, and he collapsed again, trying to protect himself and not vomit at the same time. Gritting his teeth and cursing, he tried weakly to claw his way back toward the diner, but Archer was not having any of it.

“I’ve been instructed to leave you mostly functional,” Archer explained, crouching over his prey like a brutally curious child might inspect a fleeing snail. “But only mostly. Though, I might as well take your advice and open myself up to all the possibilities, right?”

Archer’s gleeful, mocking tone chilled Mark’s blood. His mother had always told him his fast-talking mouth was going to get him into trouble someday, and it was looking like that day had come.

“I’ll get you the money,” he croaked. “I don’t know how, but I’ll find it somewhere.”

“Maybe you could sell a kidney.” Archer appeared to be thinking aloud as he looked around—for what, Mark had no idea. “Though, given how much you owe, it might need to be two.”

“Pretty sure you can’t sell both.”

The big man picked up a broken NO PARKING sign strewn beside the dumpster and hefted it, testing the weight. “The hell do I care?” he asked, nodding with some satisfaction. “I don’t care if you have to sell a liver, a spleen, even someone else’s organs. I am simply here to deliver a message on behalf of our employer. And I’m gonna deliver it in a way you’re absolutely going to understand.”

Inching toward the door, Mark was never going to make it before Archer beat him into the ground. He turned to see what the other man was doing just in time to see Archer raise the parking sign. Instinct brought Mark’s arm up to shield himself.

He heard the air whistle around the pole and felt the crack of bone as Archer delivered the blow. Maybe Mark screamed, but he wasn’t sure. He certainly blacked out, though.

Kind of dreaming, but also not, Mark found himself in his mother’s tiny bungalow, the low, quiet beeping of monitoring equipment humming away in the corner of her bedroom. It was dark and warm and had the sickening sweet scent of medication he was so familiar with these days. She was tucked up in bed as always, a machine assisting her breathing. For a second, she shifted, seemingly aware of him. He tried to touch her hand, but then she was gone, her bedroom replaced with another scene.

He was at a card table, his hand full of kings and aces, but there was no excitement to be had. The felt on the table, the dour-looking dealer, the color of the chips in his pile, they were all from the night he got busted. He still didn’t know how it had happened, just that he’d been about to win big when a hand had clamped on his shoulder, and some tough guys had escorted him to a shadowy back room.

The last thing he saw before he started coming around was the boss’s face as he shook Mark’s hand too hard with a grin that didn’t quite make it to his eyes. This was back when Mark had started rigging...